Cannabis users face substantially higher risk of heart attack (2025) • Hacker News Board

Re: Cannabis users face substantially higher risk of heart attack (2025)

#171

Post by ascotan » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

stego-tech wrote: post #124

I mean, it's good that we have data showing some sort of connection between heart attacks and cannabis, but I appreciate the callout toward the end more: > Since both studies were limited by their retrospective nature and the meta-analysis was limited by the challenges inherent in pooling data from multiple studies, researchers said that additional prospective studies would help to confirm the findings and determine…

correct. the push for dispensaries has been financial not medical. now that we are getting large scale trials there will be more real evidence to show the public health effects. my guess: it will go the way of smoking eventually. realization around public health effects -> cost of those effects on public services -> taxes and costs go up. I'm curious as to why heart attack and not stroke. seems like bp isn't the only thing at play.

Re: Cannabis users face substantially higher risk of heart attack (2025)

#172

Post by darkerside » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #150

tyjen wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Information asymmetries are a bane in the medical doctor market. Trust doctors with a grain of salt. There are many bad doctors that market themselves as good doctors, but are in reality terrible providers. I recently had a scare, where I was encouraged by two separate general practitioners to seek immediate care with an ophthalmologist. I visited the ophthalmologist who I was referred to and they said everything was…

It comes down to the old saying for doctors, "when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras." Rare and dangerous things often manifest in ways that look really similar to relatively harmless and common things. Go forward with the most probable explanation and you're not only going to be right the overwhelming majority of the time, but also keep costs and stresses down for patients. Only when somebody does show up…

If zebras cause blindness, perhaps you should consider zebras?

Re: Cannabis users face substantially higher risk of heart attack (2025)

#173

Post by projektfu » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 5:45 PM UTC

embedding-shape wrote: post #14

honeycrispy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you smoke?

Literally just wrote about that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48794178 > I've smoked cannabis daily for maybe 15 years [...] Visited a cardiologist like two months ago and have perfectly fine heart despite the smoking.

That's a weird statement. I don't think I'll ever visit a cardiologist (as a patient) unless I had a suspicion of heart disease. Is it common to get checked out by specialists for no reason in your locale?

Re: Cannabis users face substantially higher risk of heart attack (2025)

#174

Post by PaulHoule » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 5:45 PM UTC

nephihaha wrote: post #74

xprnio wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cannabis to cocaine pipeline sadly is real, whether we want to or not. As long as the same people we buy our weed from also have a chance of being the people that have cocaine for you to buy, all that’s left to figure out is the money and the willingness to buy some. (Sadly speaking from experience)

I am aware of someone who does both, because I overheard someone discussing it with him. Cannabis will retain a black market when it becomes a government cash cow.

Back in college I had a friend find a new dealer who he thought was pretty cool until he tossed out a rock in the middle of a pot deal, my friend never went back.

Myself I have been involved with weed a long time and never seen cocaine though my son did go into town one night and lock himself out of his car and have an experience we call "the night of the living baseheads."

The best drug dealer at my old school was a guy who would take chances nobody else would; I knew him somebody who dealt weed, psychedelic mushrooms and acid to my friends although I was persona-non-gratis with him because he was seriously criminally minded and led a gay bashing gang that mostly bashed straight people who were perceived as allies [1], although it took just one snarky comment (my case) or advising somebody being shot at with a paint pellet gun to see the police (the popular president of the paint pellet gun club.)

He eventually got caught bashing in an RA in the face with a rock shot with one of those rubber band catapults people use to shoot water balloons at the beach. He was banned from campus but I saw him once when he was dropping off a delivery for a friend. My friend later told me that he'd been caught on videotape dealing 3kg of cocaine to an undercover cop and he did time.

That's an unusual case. Except for that guy and the Vietnamese kid who took money and never delivered the weed to my wife when she was in high school, all the pot dealers I knew were basically responsible and law-abiding people who only dealt pot and other soft drugs. Funny somebody dropped a dime on the later.

[1] this was the 1980s during peak AIDS panic and I guess they were afraid if they spilled gay blood they might get AIDS or something

Re: Cannabis users face substantially higher risk of heart attack (2025)

#175

Post by bushwart » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 5:46 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #156

embedding-shape wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally just wrote about that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48794178 > I've smoked cannabis daily for maybe 15 years [...] Visited a cardiologist like two months ago and have perfectly fine heart despite the smoking.

I have been a heavy cannabis user (like that guy in the Bob Marley song who "smokes two joints in the morning, smokes two joints at night") on and off from my mid 20's onward. I've also been a heavy exerciser and have the constellation of symptoms known as "athlete's heart" including an A-Fib diagnosis that I don't really believe [1] as well as concerning findings that may or not really be concerning because doctors…

Have you tried battery-free vapes?

Re: Cannabis users face substantially higher risk of heart attack (2025)

#176

Post by graeme » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 5:49 PM UTC

embedding-shape wrote: post #5

> researchers were unable to account for several potential confounding factors including the duration and amount of cannabis use or the use of tobacco or other drugs. Personally I'd wager a bet it's the tobacco and/or smoking that is the harmful part, but it kind of dumbfounds me they failed to account for "details" like "duration and amount of cannabis use", that feels like a very vital thing to control for. Nothing…

The physical act of smoking itself is harmful. Not just tobacco specifically, burning and inhaling anything.

Re: Cannabis users face substantially higher risk of heart attack (2025)

#177

Post by Mwntalhwalth » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 5:51 PM UTC

Quit recently after daily use for about 30 years. Took 3 years, and several regiments of hyperbaric therapy, I also took the time to cut out all other stimulants or depressents, alcohol, coffee etc.

Now I stimulate the Vegas nerve in the morning and at night with breathing regiments

Its hard to quit as there is a lot it does for you neurologically like caffeine does but I finally realized it was giving me neuroinflammation and wrecking my sleep quality so I stopped. Likely other long term health problems but those are harder to see/feel.

Now my body does biphasic sleep and I journal at night and read books. Never liked to do either. Get crazy amounts of energy now and people constantly comment on the difference in me.

Goodluck, you can in fact regulate this shit out of your daily habits if you find a way to do a cellular reset. Its not easy.

I quit smoking cigarettes and checked drinking way way easier than cannabis

Re: Cannabis users face substantially higher risk of heart attack (2025)

#178

Post by beezle » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 5:51 PM UTC

basisword wrote: post #114

beezle wrote: post #66

for the anxiety crowd: don't buy street weed and avoid sativas about the 'study': I do not trust anything that comes out of meta studies given how many base studies are found to be either garbage or very lacking in controls. And without knowing an accurate life history it is hard to rule out or quantify damages done much earlier in life.

>> for the anxiety crowd: don't buy street weed and avoid sativas I don't think blanket advice like this is helpful. For me indicas increase my anxiety significantly while sativas do the opposite.

For clean weed - not laced with anything - sativas are more prone to causing anxiety. I doubt one will find any kind of study proving this, it is anecdotal - myself, friends and the internet at large.

While not universally true, it seems that many of the sativas for sale are very high THC which probably is a primary factor. Other factors are terpenes, though there is still a lot of debate on whether it these are real or imagined effects.

Moderate THC (15-20%) indica or indica dominant hybrid flower, using a flower vape, IMHO, is the best way to go. Always a good idea to read strain reviews prior to purchase (or growing) as people will note those that have caused them to be anxious, sleepy, hungry, horny, etc.

People can also have very different reactions when taking a drug (weed, shrooms, lsd, etc) alone vs with friends, something to consider as well.

Re: Cannabis users face substantially higher risk of heart attack (2025)

#179

Post by embedding-shape » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 5:52 PM UTC

projektfu wrote: post #173

embedding-shape wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally just wrote about that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48794178 > I've smoked cannabis daily for maybe 15 years [...] Visited a cardiologist like two months ago and have perfectly fine heart despite the smoking.

That's a weird statement. I don't think I'll ever visit a cardiologist (as a patient) unless I had a suspicion of heart disease. Is it common to get checked out by specialists for no reason in your locale?

Well, I been a cannabis smoker for more than 15 years and not checked my heart once, so made sense to ensure it looked healthy. But then I live in a country (Spain) where healthcare isn't incredibly expensive, something you can do just to make sure nothing is funky wonky. I think is relatively common for people to use the healthcare we available to us, yeah.

Re: Cannabis users face substantially higher risk of heart attack (2025)

#180

Post by jollymonATX » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 5:52 PM UTC

LastTrain wrote: post #125

beezle wrote: post #66

for the anxiety crowd: don't buy street weed and avoid sativas about the 'study': I do not trust anything that comes out of meta studies given how many base studies are found to be either garbage or very lacking in controls. And without knowing an accurate life history it is hard to rule out or quantify damages done much earlier in life.

Any literature on this or is is just your gut?

The entire field of statistics is based off not making critical type 1/2 errors (which meta studies are not able to control well) so I would say it is not just his "gut" feeling.